Health, Magrath and Brettley

This weekend involved a lot of thinking. John and I have decided to really focus on our spiritual health and on our physical health. We have started using Lose It again and will be doing 30 minutes of exercise every week day. What happened to the running you might ask. Well, my hip is not in any condition to handle it right now. I'm hoping that once I lose some weight that I'll be able to handle it, but if not, the main priority is that I'm doing my best to be healthy. In focusing on my spiritual health, I have 1 book left to read in the series I'm working on, and then I will be focusing on just spiritually uplifting books for a few months. At least for the rest of the summer, but probably longer. Also, we will be refocusing on holding FHE every week and will be studying the new Marriage and Family Relations manual from the church. I want the things that I do to be reflective of what's really the most important to me, which would be Heavenly Father, the Savior and my family.

We are excited to head to Magrath late next week. The boys and I will be staying for at least 2 1/2 weeks. Caleb and Ty are enrolled in swimming lessons, which should be lots of fun. We are looking forward to getting to spend lots of time outside and with John's family.

Today Brettley turned 5 months old, adjusted age 3 1/2 months. We are sure that he is at least past the 4 month mark in development now. He had his first meal of rice cereal yesterday. He has been acting hungry shortly after downing a whole bottle of formula, so we decided to give it a try. He seemed to enjoy it and didn't fuss at all. He would have sat nice in his high chair, but John and I find it easier to have someone hold the baby the first time they try baby food. He'll be back in the high chair tonight.

If Only...

Day 5: The Dress

For the redo of the original wedding, picture the red as white and the gold as silver. I couldn't find a picture of the bouquet I wanted, but it would be ivy with white and blue roses.




















For the Hawaii wedding, here is something that I'm sure will shock the living daylights out of my mum. If I hadn't had the theme that I did for my wedding, this is what I would have wanted (dress photo courtesy of TotallyModest.com).

My Peeps & Their Garb

I will be foregoing the Attitude of Gratitude today. I'm thinking about just doing it the first or last Thursday of the month instead of every week. We'll see what happens.

Onto the wedding...
Day 2: The Bridesmaids & Co

Let's do the youngin' first. My flower girl (since mine are too old to be flower girls now) would be Addie Summers (my friend Heidi's little girl). Here's the dresses she'd wear for both themes. Just imagine with the first one that the blue color would be navy blue and the gold trim parts would be silver instead. (The second photo is from TotallyModest.com)



































Next would be my maid of honor and bridesmaids. If I could change one thing about my real wedding, this would be it. My maid of honor would be Danya Wood and my bridesmaids would be Heidi Summers and Danielle Rajotte. I had a few other people that I wanted to include as well, but I didn't want too big of a wedding party. So here are the dresses. (The second photo is from TotallyModest.com and would be in fuscia instead of the color it is in the picture) For the first wedding, they wouldn't have flowers, they'd have a wreath of ivy in on their heads instead.



































(I really want one of these dresses in either the blue or the fuscia)

















(The bridesmaids bouquet ball)

The Monstrosity

Day 3: The Cake

For the bigger version of the original wedding, I couldn't decide between 2 different cakes. Props to you if you know what both of them are. I also would pick either almond cake or egg nog cake for either of these and it would be made by Charm City Cakes (think Ace of Cakes). Actually, the top cake WAS made by CCC.





























~~~

For my beautiful Hawaiian wedding, I would pick a far more traditional looking cake and the flavor would be marble. I probably wouldn't be so picky about who made this one as long as they did a great job.


















Stay tuned tomorrow to see who my bridesmaids and co would be and what they would be wearing.

The Big Par-tay

Day 2: The Reception

First off, I would only have 1. We had 2 and the second one wasn't really important to us because we'd been married for a week already. However, the whole calling reception thing would be out the window in a heartbeat. I didn't enjoy it because I just saw a whole bunch of people I don't know long enough to shake their hand and have them congratulate me (or offer condolences if they had a sense of humor). I was sick and I was confined to stand in line and not have any supper. Instead, remember that sweet looking castle wall in the last post? They would have been all around the place and we would have had a light dinner with salads and sandwiches with people we actually REALLY knew (I knew hardly anyone at our big reception) and then we would have had a big fun dance. Our wedding song would be God Bless The Broken Road by Rascal Flatts. It wouldn't have been in the church so that we could have stayed and had everyone ring in the New Year together. Fun times.

However, if we were in Hawaii we would have been having a big sit down dinner that would include Zuppa Toscana and Herb & Brie Stuffed Filet Mignon, among other yummy foods. Then we'd dance it up on a beach or something with everyone in nice casual tropical attire. Free non alcoholic drinks all night (mmm, virgin strawberry daiquiris...). In looking for pictures to go with this tropical idea I realized that my main color would be a really bold pink. It doesn't seem like me, hey? But I'm lovin' it (and now I'm stuck on McDonald's).
The dinner area would look something like this:

My Imaginary Wedding - Day 1/5

On one of the blogs I'm reading she's doing an imaginary wedding week. Here's what I would do if I were planning a wedding now instead of 5.5 years ago, and with an unlimited budget.

Day 1: The Theme
Day 2: The Reception
Day 3: The Cake
Day 4: The Bridesmaids & Co.
Day 5: The Dress

***

Day 1: The Theme

We had a medieval/Lord of the Rings themed wedding and I loved it. I don't think I would really change that. We had originally picked blue and silver as our colors and I would still go with them (the burgundy and green came in for convenience reasons).




























However, if money were no object, I would have loved to have had a tropical wedding at the Laie Hawaii Temple. If we'd had the wedding there I would have picked any fun tropical colors that really went.

Canada Turned 144 Years Young

It felt strange not to be posting over the long weekend, I really got used to doing this every morning. Oh well, it's not like I had a lot to say anyway. The older boys left with my stepdad on Thursday morning to spend the weekend in Wainwright. My dad took Brettley and I to Brettley's checkup with the pediatrician. He weighed in at 13 lbs 6.5 oz. His ped said that for his developmental milestones he's pretty much at par with his actual age, instead of his adjusted age, but still just a bit shorter and lighter. He's doing great with catching up, though. The only concern is that Brett has a 'very' lazy eye. His ped has decided that because it's so pronounced that we will be safe and she's referring him to a pediatric optometrist. Hopefully it won't take too long to figure out what's up.

We kicked off our Canada Day long weekend by having poutine for supper on Thursday. I went to bed with my throat bothering me. I really should have been smart and gargled with salt water before I went to bed. On Friday I woke up and felt like I'd been punched in the face a few times or something. My throat was sore and my nose was having some huge sinus issues. We didn't do much of anything for Canada Day, except grocery shopping. I slept a lot, the cold was really wiping me out. I'm not the kind of person who feels the need to go nuts once a year in an effort to make myself feel patriotic. I love Canada all of the time and I'm always happy to be a citizen of this wonderful country. Brettley did wear his Canada shirt, though.

Saturday we did a whole load of nothing. I slept a lot again and was feeling worse. For the evening I went for a ladies night at a friend's place. We had snacks a watched a couple of movies. It was a lot of fun, but I was feeling pretty rotten by the end.

When I woke up yesterday I thought that there was no way I was going to church. Then I got a nosebleed and decided that since I missed the weekend before that I needed to go this time. I got through Sacrament meeting okay, just had to get up once to go down the hallway and hack up a lung. Sunday School was spent in the hallway with our home teacher and I only made it partway through Relief Society before I had to call it a day and have John drive me back home.

I'm feeling better this morning, though. My head isn't quite as foggy and I only feel like I've been punched in the nose instead of all over my face. So my Canada Day weekend wasn't quite how I'd envisioned it, but I did get more sleep than usual and Caleb and Ty had a BLAST at Grandma Jo and Grandpa Bob's.